The Shadows Will Fall
by coalitiongirl
Summary: It's tricky work, stealing a thief.
1. Chapter 1

Fic in two parts, and the second should be uploaded later this weekend. Goes AU near the end of The Thief.

* * *

The Queen awaits her Thief.

Her red lace handkerchief is waving in the wind, caught in the window of her second anteroom in a silent signal that only he will recognize. There are always clues when he arrives: a whisper of a curtain behind her, the shadows shifting against the wall hued golden by lamplight, a breath against her neck as she sits, rigid. Her Thief is patient in his art but impatient with her attentions, and she needs only wait an extra moment to acknowledge him before he surrenders the calm that unnerves her more than anything else the boy she'd snatched from prison can do to her.

She sees, rather than hears, the passage of her Thief into her room with the movement of the shadows; and pauses, her spine stiff and unyielding, her eyes on the scarlet tapestries covering the wall before her. There's a low puff behind her; a breath exhaled in the beginnings of frustration, and her mouth twitches for an instant in satisfaction at the victory.

"Your Majesty." Always _Your Majesty_, never _My Queen_, and she thinks that that must be the first reason why she still distrusts him, why she is certain that he still serves another. He never speaks of Eddis or other duties, has not made a move to leave her palace even once, yet she remains watchful. "I have the Mede's letter."

"Give it to me," she commands, still inspecting the tapestry. The golden lacing of the lower half darkens to brown as her Thief moves to her, temporarily obscuring the light of the lamp from her range of sight. He passes her the paper and she frowns down at it for a moment, skimming the first paragraph.

"It's more of the same," her Thief says, his boredom apparent. "He prattles on and on about how he's won your favor, and there's a bit about the possibility of an alliance between Eddis and Sounis caging you with Medea. Nothing different since the last letter."

"Nothing?" She smoothes down the lower half of the paper, eyes sharpened by years of watching palace intrigue play out immediately catching the discomfort just beneath the surface of her Thief's boredom. "Here he speculates that a marriage between Sounis and Eddis is inevitable, and I will of course turn to him in my…" She repeats the word, an eyebrow arching in amusement. "Desperation."

She can feel her Thief's impatience, barely contained, and is unsurprised when he bursts out, "It won't happen."

"No?" _Do tell._

"The queen would never-!" He stops at once, and when she raises her eyes to gauge his reaction, he's staring at the ground in stubborn silence. For all his subtlety and grace in his art, his face is still naked and readable whenever Eddis's queen is mentioned.

"Wouldn't she?" Her voice is silky and low, the trap sprung and her Thief caught without hope of flight. "With Sounis's magus home with knowledge of Hamiathes's Gift, it will be small labor to duplicate the mark of legitimacy. And without the original to compare…" She watches him stiffen and smiles with little humor.

He shrugs, seemingly unworried, and had he not been shaking with suppressed rage moments before she might've believed it. "Let Eddis marry Sounis, then. Give the Mede something new to report." She blinks and the letter is in his hands again. He's staring at her with dark eyes so intense that she can't recall the outrage that she should summon for the thief who would snatch something from the hands of a queen.

"Indeed." She tears her gaze away from his, instead tracing the lines of the tapestry with her eyes. There is an imperfection in the stitching, one she's never noticed before. "You may go. I will call for you again when I have need for you." She will not call him for several days, and she is no longer certain that he will be there when she does.

Eddis might doom her country, if forced into marriage with Sounis, and there's a petty part of her that takes savage pleasure in the idea of Eddis, so spoiled by her people's love, finally trapped in her once-easy royalty. But Attolia would be an overly ambitious Sounis's final target, and that the Queen cannot permit.

Her Thief is gone when she turns, and she allows herself a satisfied smile at last. It had been a risky gambit, sending her other prisoners back to Sounis, but pressuring Sounis at this time would only strengthen his desire to gain Eddis. No, Eddis must be secure, and the Queen knows her Thief well enough already to be certain that he has the tools to ensure it.

She expects her Thief to be gone for several days, at the least, and so she glides over to the window to remove her handkerchief from its hanging place and return it to the table in her bedroom. It sweeps over something glittering red that she hasn't seen before, and she sets it aside for a moment to inspect the ruby earrings now sitting inconspicuously in the case that holds her headband. "Eugenides," she says aloud, her eyes narrowed and her spine rigid again.

* * *

She's walking in the gardens with Nahuseresh three days later, allowing herself to be led down the path and the conversation, and when she looks up, her Thief is perched in the trees above her, laughing silently at them both. She presses her lips together tightly, disapproving, but when Nahuseresh follows her gaze upward, her Thief is gone.

She smiles at the Mede, a picture of innocent charm. "It was only a passing breeze."

* * *

Her handkerchief is dangling from his fingers when he arrives in her chambers that night. "Your Majesty." He always acknowledges her with deference, even when his eyes are frustrated or angry or alight with amusement at a humor she can never quite understand. She should punish him for it, should have her guards drag him back to a cell and teach him a lesson about respect; but that would require her to admit that she's more aware of his presence than she wishes. He's below her, not worth her while, and the moment she treats him as an equal, she loses the game.

It's tricky work, stealing a thief.

"Eddis's Thief has presented her with Hamiathes's Gift while you were gone." She chooses her words with care. "He left her court immediately after. It seems the Thief of Eddis is gone for now."

"It seems," her Thief agrees, his tone carefully neutral.

"And I have a Thief of my own." The Queen stands, cupping a pale hand against dark cheek, and she can feel him tremulous against her. His eyes are awash with fear and wariness and an emotion she can't quite name, and when he looks away it's an unsatisfying victory.

"You do." He inhales slowly, and she watches her hand rise and fall with the breath.

It's almost mesmerizing. She snaps out of her reverie with that thought. "How fortunate for me."

"Yes." Now he's smiling. It's a child's smile, soft and eager and guileless, and for a moment she allows herself to consider just how young her Thief really is.

She knows he must have an angle, that there must be some purpose to his being here with her now when he's shown that he can go home so easily. A spy, perhaps, concealed within her most trusted servants, but there is little intelligence that Eddis can use against the might of Attolia, and her Thief has shown desire to leave only once. And now, his face clean and free of artifice, his motives remain a mystery. "Why did you accept my offer?" she murmurs. "Why become my Thief?"

He glances down, almost bashful, and she wonders how much of his response will be affected and how much sincere when he mumbles, "You're very beautiful."

She's momentarily staggered speechless, and he ducks his head and glances up at her through dark lashes. It's absurd, ridiculous to take it at face value, but then she remembers the earrings that sit in their own box beside her headband's case. It's a sham, and he's a liar, but now his face has steeled into something hard and defiant and she can't stifle the laugh that his lies have summoned forth.

"And you," she says, cupping his cheek again, leaning in close enough that she can feel his hot breath harsh against her lips. "Have far more important things to steal than glances at me." She drops her hand and turns away toward the window, and he nearly rocks forward into her. "The Baron Erondites met with the Mede yesterday, and he gave him a ring of some value." She waves her hand, unconcerned. "Dispose of it. Dedicate it, sell it, I don't care. I want the Mede to see how little value Erondites puts in their alliance."

Her Thief is gone when she turns back. This time a thin gold band, intricately gilded with what is unmistakably the work of an Eddisian artisan, is resting on her handkerchief, gold on red.

* * *

It hadn't been like this with Relius, when she'd found him and seen his usefulness and elevated him. Relius had taught her, had served her, and his loyalty never wavered nor had she had reason to doubt him. And for her risks, she'd found an invaluable Secretary of the Archives in Relius, one of the few people in her court that she could trust completely.

She'd expected it to go differently with her Thief, who'd had other allegiances to begin with. She'd expected him to leave, proving all her suspicions true; or stay, choosing to serve a new queen. And he'd chosen the latter but she still can't quite see him as hers, or determine if this is only the fickleness of youth.

His agenda is still obscured, his motivations a mystery; and while she flinches at the idea of wearing the jewelry he brings back for her, she can't help but wonder what he's trying to accomplish with them. She's taken to idly twisting the bracelet between her fingers as she awaits her Thief to twist between her fingers as well, taking a certain satisfaction in his discomfort with her proprietary grip. The Thief of Eddis belongs only to his country, she remembers, not his Queen, and she holds in her hands a pointed reminder that she views his duties differently. He serves the Queen, not Attolia, and he's a phantom visitor of the night now, creeping through Attolia on her orders with none the wiser.

_A shadow thief for the shadow queen._

And yet, there's no denying the way her stomach twists each time her Thief appears in her room, his eyes hopeful as he catches sight of the bracelet in her hand. It's something very close to guilt that plagues her when his innocence is so apparent, when she can see the unchecked desire on his face for her to appreciate his gifts. She's turned them into weapons, into an expression of ownership when she has no others to tie to him, and there's a part of her that's vaguely uneasy about doing so with him.

_Damn him._ She remembers herself at his age, not too long ago, remembers her idealism fade away with every stitch on her spindle at her then-fiance's table. Whatever reason Eugenides has to want to present her with trinkets, it's irrelevant to her, and there's no need to regret it or feel his aching embarrassment so sharply. What he wants, what he thinks he can obtain...all his dreams will fade just as hers did, and she has no time or need for compassion there.

_None._

Her Thief has taken to following the Mede around during the day, she's noticed- though she suspects that she notices only because he wants her to, and because he knows that it'll amuse her. He steals from Nahuseresh with savage satisfaction, snatching baubles from his pockets mere moments before the Mede attempts to present them to her, taking his pocket watch and his papers when he'd leave them unattended; and once she'd nearly laughed when Nahuseresh had arrived with a full beard and apologetically informed her that an accident had destroyed all his flasks of hair oil.

Still, her Thief can't be allowed to run unchecked when it comes to such a vital ambassador, and she issues a single command to him one night, warning him not to interfere with the Mede anymore. It's the first time she's given him an order he doesn't want to obey, and she is tense with dread for the day following. She may be queen, but how can she force a shadow to comply without risking that it take form before her barons?

But her Thief obeys, and the Mede is untroubled by missing items anymore. And if she sees Eugenides raising his eyebrows at her from the shadows of her palace as she walks with Nahuseresh, she makes no mention of it.

Nor does she comment on the pendant she finds beside her headband one morning beckoning her in defiant challenge. She flushes once, tucks the pendant into another box, and when she next lays out her handkerchief at the window, she leaves the bracelet in its box.

His eyes watch her hands in silent reproach and Attolia dismisses him, dissatisfied and guilty again.

* * *

She's walking alone through the queen's garden one day, hyperaware of her Thief crouched in front of the water just behind the next bush. Her guards haven't noticed him yet, and she wonders if they've earned a reprimand for it or if she should commend her Thief instead. She stays tense and tight-lipped for the time being, uneasy still around Eugenides, and when she walks past his hiding spot he's already vanished.

She ponders the necessity of alerting her guards of her Thief's existence, but he has had ample time and place to be a danger to her and hasn't yet proven so. If he is a spy, he isn't a very effective one, or Relius's informants in Eddis are simply unaware of any intelligence her Thief has fed them. For now, she's inclined to continue to trust him in her realm, even if the Mede is now complaining of foreign Attolian insects that have burrowed into his bedding. It's subtle and untraceable enough that she's certain Eugenides is involved, damn him, even if she chooses to turn a blind eye for the time being.

Lost in her thoughts, she nearly stumbles into the younger Erondites. He is as loyal to her as his father is a menace, and she is grateful for his loyalty more than she can express without showing vulnerability, so she listens patiently as he tells her about a poem he's been writing. When he's finished, she excuses herself and makes her way inside to dine with her court, musing on the crestfallen look on his face as she'd left. She had never been much for poetry, too caught up in the requirements of minor- and eventually full-fledged- royalty, but she'd hoped that she'd made her admiration of his craft known.

Eugenides, she recalls, has the same fascination with books and writing as Dite, though his conversely seems a family trait passed down from Thief to Thief. Relius's men have reported that the Thief of Eddis has a home in the royal library, though he hasn't returned there in months. Now that winter is close, she's had Phresine ensure that several warm blankets are delivered to the rooms above her own library and changed weekly.

She asks him about Dite's poem when he drops soundlessly into the anteroom from a hidden passage he still hasn't shown her, and he shakes with barely repressed laughter until she grabs him by the scruff of his collar and demands to know what amuses him so. "Dite, the poor fool." Her Thief shakes his head pityingly. "He's hopelessly in love with you."

He's studying her face as he speaks, but she's too taken aback to school her expression. "Dite?"

"Didn't you know?"

It's impossible, and she says so, her cheeks hot at the thought of it. She's cultivated too strong an image, too ruthless for anyone to love her. Men don't need a queen they can love- they need a queen they would fear, they would tremble from, they would never dare to question.

Her Thief is still staring at her. "You can't possibly believe that."

She flushes deeper. "Oh, it's different in _Eddis_," she spits out, venom in her tone. "This is Attolia. There are no-"

He cuts her off, but she barely notices, too caught up in her own self-doubt and guardedness. "You're their queen! And no matter how much the barons loathe you, it's nothing compared to how much the people of Attolia-"

"Respect me?" They must, since she allows no less, but the idea of them loving her, of a man actually coming forward to profess his love for her…it's laughable.

And then there's Eugenides's voice, thundering over hers until she falls silent, his eyes fierce and shining with a passion that silences her mid-denial, and she can only stand, incensed at his tone, as he says, "If you let them-!"

And then he ducks his head, bashful again, and Attolia's still riveted in place with shock and anger as he murmurs, "What man wouldn't?"

There's a banging on the door to the anteroom, a slew of worried guards and attendants behind it, and when she moves to open the door and reassure them that they heard nothing (and they're nothing if not discreet, even if Phresine has them believe that they're only concealing an affair), she feels only a brush of her Thief's hand against her own before he's gone.

* * *

"Your Majesty." She hears a whisper within a dream, swallowed up at once by the somnolence of slumber. "Your Majesty!" The voice returns, more insistent this time, and she blinks up at her father and wonders why he would call her queen when she is nobody, irrelevant, the Mede seated in the chair of Attolis and her Thief standing where her throne would be.

"Irene." Her eyes snap open, drowsiness draining from her in a moment with a single word. Her Thief is crouched beside her, a hand outstretched and millimeters from her face as though he'd been considering rousing her with a touch.

Outraged, she slaps him away, hitting him hard enough that he has to rock backward on his heels to keep his balance. She rises from her bed, drawing her nightgown around her as though she's wearing her most regal of dresses, and turning an imperious stare on him. She'd learned long ago that clothes do not make a queen; they only enhance what she already possesses, and in that moment she'd never felt more unnerved, more violated, and more in need of her own command. "You overstep," she snaps, glaring down at him, her heart still pounding from the shock.

Eugenides doesn't respond, and for a moment she desires nothing more than to slap him again, to make him hurt for that instant where she'd awakened and been afraid. She'd sworn years ago to never allow herself to be afraid again, to never for an instant surrender control to anyone else, and until the moment when she'd heard the name he had no right to say and seen his dark face so close to hers, she'd never once ceded.

Her Thief drops from his crouch to a kneel, lifting his face to meet her eyes. "Your Majesty," he amends, though his expression is still dark and worried, and only then does she see the letter slotted between two fingers of his left hand. He makes no apologies for his behavior, and she supposes that any demands she makes for them would only unnerve her further. "That damned Mede sent this message out just a few minutes ago."

"And you stole it?" She makes her way to a gilded chair in the corner, extending a hand until Eugenides rises, swift-footed as a frightened goat, and passes her the letter.

Her Thief shrugs his shoulders unhappily. "I followed his messenger to one of the lower chambers here." Where the attendants sleep, and presumably a dalliance awaits, the Queen thinks. "We don't have much time, but I thought you'd want to read it yourself."

She does so, an eyebrow arching at the contents of the letter. It's nothing she hadn't been wary of, especially after she had rejected Nahuseresh's advice to keep the magus interred, aware more than ever of the dangers there. The Mede are determined to have their war in the peninsula. "Then Sounis's rebels are treating with the Mede, and Sounis is pushed further and further toward war with Eddis." His kingdom is in danger, and a sovereign more driven to protect his sovereignty than his country would turn to battle instead of stability. The rumors have been diligently spreading for months now until even in her own halls the Queen hears whispers of Eddis sponsoring Sounis's rebels. But she trusts Relius over rumors, and the letter she holds now is mere confirmation of what she has already known. "They court Attolia, and drive Sounis to destruction."

"Sounis's destruction is only a precursor to Attolia's," her Thief reminds her, though she needs no warning.

She probes his gaze for a moment, finding exactly what she's searching for in his eyes. "Eddis will be lost first. Her armies are strong, but far smaller than Sounis's, and each realm will tear the other apart."

Eugenides twitches, and she pushes further. "The country will be devastated, and even a marriage treaty will not save Eddis now. Nor will a rock destroyed by its sovereign." Her Thief's shoulders tighten in defiance against his fears, expressed so plainly, and the Queen takes a savage satisfaction in seeing him brought to the same seized terror as she had been to find him in her bedroom.

But her objective is more nuanced than a petty revenge, and she's suddenly vaguely ashamed that she's stooped to that level, no matter how briefly. Eugenides is trembling, and she softens her voice a hair. "We can't allow that to happen, of course. Attolia must be secure, and Sounis cannot take Eddis."

His eyes are intense and driven, more animated than she's seen them since the night he'd told her about Dite, and Attolia is stricken with a flash of passion so ferocious and invidious that she seizes the arms of her chair, her throat sealed and words powerless to slip through. _For Eddis_, she broods, only Eddis can awaken such power in him, and when she closes her eyes and opens them again, Eugenides is standing, the letter in his hands again and the seal on it intact. "Let me go," he says, and something within her twists in rebellion at those words, from him to her. "I can stop it."

"Can you?" She leans forward, folding her hands together. She doesn't doubt his confidence, and there's something about Eugenides that she imagines has everyone he meets believe he can do anything. But she finds it difficult to believe that he wouldn't already be off to Eddis, had he nothing to demand from her first.

"Sounis's magus will take my counsel. And Eddis-" He pauses, remembering himself, and then discarding any last vestige of concealment that might have remained. "Eddis will have my counsel as well."

"Indeed," the Queen agrees, unbothered.

"I only need-" He ducks his head, discomfited. "I'm not a very good rider. And I _must_ outrun this message."

There's something almost delightful about Eugenides's embarrassment, something refreshing and self-effacing at his admission that makes her desire to smile at him stronger than she would have him know. This is neither the time nor place, and she instead slides her signet ring from her finger and says, "You must have a soldier in mind to transport you. You will tell him nothing of who you are and your mission, of course."

Eugenides's head bobs up and down once, a small dance of anticipation at being permitted to run unchecked, she supposes. "Of course."

She takes his hand in her own, a thrill running through her at how he shudders at her touch, and she slips her ring onto a slender finger, her thumb dancing along his palm. His hand is softer than she'd have imagined, not the fineness of royalty but the gently calloused hands of a master of his craft, and only the white scars at his wrists are any indication of what casualties he's accrued over the years.

"My Queen." The words skitter out of him so roughly that she can't imagine that they had been intended, even as she trembles from the power behind them. She should be exultant, a victory at last, her Thief finally half stolen.

Instead, she walks into her anteroom and leaves Eugenides behind, seeking serenity in the stillness of her silent apartments.

She never sees her Thief return that night. When she reenters her room much later, when the moon has vanished over the horizon and the sun is just beginning to lighten the sky, her handkerchief is red against the gold of her coverlet and the signet ring resting atop it.


	2. Chapter 2

Eugenides is gone for a week before the news begins to trickle in. The rebels continue to trouble Sounis, but an attempt to kidnap his heir has been botched and the future king has disappeared. With that danger, Sounis's attention has been forced to the rebels themselves, rather than finding an easy scapegoat in Eddis. And Eddis has offered her aid to Sounis unasked, cementing an offer to treaty that Sounis would be wise to take.

She never hears a whisper of the Queen's Thief, not like the announcements and formalities that had accompanied him when he'd brought Hamiathes's Gift to his queen. But she knows all the while that he's there: manipulating, negotiating, and advising only those entrusted with the secret of what he is capable of.

She leaves her handkerchief out each night, a crimson flag waving a missive no one who matters will recognize, and spends more time in contemplation in her anteroom than she likes to consider. After several days, she stops removing the handkerchief by morning. She favors the stillness of waiting to the chaos of wondering, and shields uncertainty from her heart.

By day, the Queen resumes her walks with the Mede and takes care in displaying her appreciation for his concern. He speaks often of the perils of an allied Sounis and Eddis and she smiles with practiced grace at his assurance that the Medes would, of course, ensure that their valued friends in Attolia remain uncontested. She is as curt with her people as she is courteous to the Mede these days, a woman's fear from the danger that now faces her country. The Mede watches knowingly as she snaps out orders and receives her staff with unprecedented stiffness, and she treats him as her only solace from the tensions of the throne.

She nearly shouts at Teleus when he presses her for details on his sole absent soldier yet again and retreats in a whirl of wrathful ice to her apartments, where she squeezes Eugenides's bracelet between her fingers and struggles to find the balance between her affected tension and the tension she's summoned forth by sending the Thief of Eddis home.

Teleus comes to see her later, and she has no explanation beyond the one that he sees, Nahuseresh and his oh-so-subtle machinations. He accepts, and he doesn't ask where she had sent his soldier again.

She has never heard of this Costis before, though Teleus speaks with measured respect of his potential. But she has seen her Thief watching the soldiers spar in the training ground before and knows that his selection would have been well thought out. Eugenides's moods and chosen missions may be as mercurial as her own are staid, but even a threat to Eddis wouldn't be enough for him to make a mistake.

For a gripped moment, she allows herself to contemplate the possibility that this Costis would not obey. What reason, then, to follow an Eddisian who no longer possesses his queen's ring? She had thought her Thief would choose a more experienced soldier, one more reliable than a guard who'd never been his own command.

_Trust Eugenides._ She'd given him her ring and her faith and sent him back where he belonged, where he had allies and cousins and could be more than a phantom in the night. And she has to believe that he will live up to that faith, that he'll find what Eddis requires and what Attolia needs and mesh both into a salvageable peace.

She rubs the cool silver of the bracelet against her lips for a moment, thoughtful. Her duties now are to Attolia, to its empty coffers and the Mede whispering promises in her ear. Her Thief is a secondary concern, and if he's interfering with her judgment, with her patience and her grasp over the barons, she has no choice but to put her worries aside.

She tugs on the handkerchief, freeing it from the window, and slides the bracelet onto her wrist. She has work to do.

* * *

Sounis is dead.

She would have implicated her Thief for it immediately, had he not been back in her court long before the news reaches them. He hasn't come to her, nor has she summoned him, but the young soldier he'd left with had returned days ago, bright and breathless from his journey with her Thief.

She understands.

They have a private audience with only Relius and Teleus present. She enjoys the shock apparent on Teleus's face when the truth about the Thief is revealed. Relius is calm and unsurprised and she thinks he must have known for a long time now, since she began asking too many questions about a prisoner she'd barely possessed.

She'd had Costis promoted to squad leader for his work and sworn to secrecy with regard to her Thief. Costis speaks of Eugenides with an odd sort of wonder mingled with frustration, a combination the Queen has come to associate with her Thief. Yes, they had gone to Sounis and met privately with his magus. Yes, Eddis's men had retrieved the heir to the throne at the same time and brought him back to her. Eddis's offer for aid had been treated with suspicion from the start, but her men had brought new resources to quell the uprising and Sounis had signed a treaty reluctantly after pressure from both sides. Eugenides and Costis had begun the return to Attolia only once the treaty had been signed and Eddis and Sounis both secure.

Not secure enough, it seems. And this boy heir is far too young to command armies, let alone retake a kingdom that should be his.

"Eugenides," she murmurs, tapping her fingers against the arm of her chair for a moment, deep in thought. No, even her Thief lacks the resources to take a throne, and if Sounis cannot hold his seat without question, he deserves no aid from she who has.

"Your Majesty." The reply comes from somewhere behind her and she twitches, rising in an instant and spinning to face him.

"How long have you been here?" she demands. He's standing in the deep shadows in the corner of the room, dressed in dark clothes and so silent that he might have been present before she'd entered and she wouldn't have known. The flush of excitement from a successful trip is still apparent on his face, days later; and he seems older somehow, grown in his weeks away from not-quite-man to something else entirely. She can feel heat high in her cheeks at the observation and looks away.

When she turns back, he's still smiling at her. "I heard you promoted Costis."

She shakes her head, quirking her lips in what is certainly not a returning smile. "To spend that much time with you without turning to murder? He deserves no less."

"Fair enough," Eugenides agrees, and there's a moment of companionable stillness between them, the tension seeping away from Attolia as quickly as it had first arrived when he'd left. She flushes again and he watches her in silence, the humor fading from his eyes and replaced with something unfathomable.

"The Mede!" she barks out, remembering her ambassador and the information she's been lacking since she sent her Thief away.

When he slips out with her newest missive, she closes her eyes, willing herself to remember that she is the Queen, and he only a thief with a gift for unnerving her.

* * *

She hadn't known that along with Sounis's magus and Eddis's thief, she'd once held Sounis's heir as well, and there's no need to feign the shock and irritation that that news is coming from Nahuseresh and not her preferred sources.

"Regardless, it seems that he is inconsequential," Nahuseresh says airily, waving a hand. "Sounis's rebels have risen again with the death of the king, and this child Sounis is merely a distraction."

"Then Attolia is safe again." The Queen leans more heavily on the Mede's arm, her thoughts a jumble of realization and renewed concern. Her Thief hadn't killed Sounis, nor had Eddis. There had been no need for an assassination once the king had agreed to sign the treaty. No, this is the Medes, interfering again to weaken a newly strengthened Sounis. And she knows from the news Eugenides and Relius both have brought to her that the Mede king is pressing Nahuseresh for more commitment on Attolia's part, for Sounis and Attolia to be taken at once and Eddis overwhelmed in an instant.

"There is another matter," the Mede says, placing a hand over hers as they walk. "The Thief you once held."

She chokes, her throat seized up, and covers her sudden horror with a bout of coughing that has her doubled over, the Mede solicitous at her side and her guards running forward. "N-No," she manages, holding up a hand, rising back to her full height. "My apologies, I must have tripped." She smiles at Nahuseresh, ducking her face and looking up at him through parted lashes. "Please, go back to your story."

"Hardly a story," he says, his smile returned over that damn beard of his. "But a problem nonetheless. The Thief of Eddis may have escaped your prison, but he remains in Attolia. I have suspected so for a long time, since items in my quarters began vanishing." He pauses, extending his arm for her again, and she inwardly curses her Thief for his stupidity. "But only last night, one of my attendants caught sight of an Eddisian man in our apartments. They are so much less secure than in Medea."

"I will speak to Teleus at once," she promises, tightening her grip on him. "We will double the guard on your apartments and find this Thief."

"Hm." Nahuseresh strokes his beard delicately. "I wonder if perhaps Teleus…"

"Yes?"

"Your Captain of the Guard is ardent in his loyalty, of course," he rushes to assure her. "But to allow such a grievous security breach as this? It may be time to find someone more dedicated. Someone younger, perhaps," he says thoughtfully.

She tilts her head to the side. "Indeed it may. I will consider it. Your advice is invaluable as always," she agrees.

"I wish only to serve you as I best can." The Mede presses his lips to the back of her hand, leaving them there a hair longer than is appropriate.

She will have Teleus assign Costis's squad to Nahuseresh's apartments, she decides, quickening her step back to her apartments later that evening. Her Thief will have to stay away from the Mede party and she will return to collecting information from Relius's sources in Medea and Sounis rather than risk Eugenides again. He is too valuable to become a pawn in this game with the Mede.

Her Thief doesn't come when she lays out her handkerchief, and she stands, still as stone, her back to the window and her eyes on the red and gold tapestry before her. In the shadows, she can almost make out the patterns in the shading, the map of Attolia beneath it. The country that had never wanted her, the one that she'd been determined to take. She has grown accustomed for fighting for what she wants, even with the little joy it brings her when she wins.

"Your Majesty." He breathes it from her shoulder, far closer than is proper around the Queen. She nods, tight-lipped, and her eyes narrow when a paper is slipped into her hand. "A new message for the Mede from among the rebels."

Her face hardens. "The Mede knows you're here."

He shrugs, unbothered. "I heard."

"And you went _back there_?"

Eugenides brushes past her so he's standing before her, a black figure silhouetted against the tapestry. "Of course. Sophos- Sounis," he corrects, frowning. "His family is their next target. They're going to force him into war with Eddis."

She can't focus on his words, not when she's brimming with anger that feels more and more like fear with every moment he stands before her. "You will not go back there. Not even to return that letter. If Nahuseresh seizes you-"

"No one can seize me," he says, and his confidence has never made him seem so childlike before, has never made her rage more.

"I did!" she hisses, stepping forward until Eugenides is pinned against the wall, Attolia directly in front of him. "Or have you forgotten? I stole you, and you're still here, and I will _not_ have the Mede take you from me!"

His eyes narrow at her phrasing. "I am here because I want to be here. I do what I want."

"No." Her voice is cold, her veins like ice with fury. "Not in my home, in my room. In my _country_. You are mine now."

"Am I?" He steps forward, his eyes still hooded with challenge. "You know where my loyalties lie."

She spits out the words, too angry to formulate them properly, to consider what she's saying as she does. "To _Eddis_? Eddis has lost you. I know nothing other than that you have stayed here since I stole you and left only at my behest!"

But he doesn't take the provocation, only blinks up at her. "Why?"

She is halted in her righteous fury. "What?"

He is barely moving, but she can feel the tension quivering from him regardless and knows that this is a question he has dared not ask until now. "Why steal me, when you know that I am Eddis's? Did you think I would forget so quickly?" She is silent, her lips pressed together into a thin line, her eyes still fixed on his. "Did you only want to take something Eddis loved?"

Her head feels heavy as she shakes it, slow as molasses, dizzy with his nearness and words so incisive that she can't quite deny them wholeheartedly. _Perhaps_, she doesn't say, and he hears it all the same.

His eyes soften with compassion, and she loathes it and craves it all at once. "Have you stolen a Thief, or have I stolen a Queen?" Warm palms reach up to cup her face, to tilt her head ever closer to him.

"Do you know what I think, Irene?" His voice is coarse and rough with his Eddisian accent, nothing like the polished velvet of the Mede or even the smooth cadence of Dite's cultured lilt. His hands are like a furnace. "I think we stole each other."

He bends toward her and the last of her anger fades, replaced with an emotion she barely knows anymore. When he kisses her, she wants to push him aside and deny and reject him and lean in closer, resting her hands against his chest, closing her eyes and kissing him ever closer. She pushes him once, pressing him against the door to her room until it's open and she can move closer to his wild eyes again, can press her lips to his and forget, for just a moment.

Eugenides whispers her name and Irene shudders.

* * *

Attolia awakens to terrible regret and more dread than she can ever afford to feel. Beside her, Eugenides still sleeps, his face guileless and unbothered in the light of the morning sun. Her fingers reach to touch him, unbidden, tracing the lines of his face down to his lips.

They press together and then open in a soft kiss, and Eugenides smiles with all the satisfaction of a tiger replete, his eyes opening only after her fingers linger. He watches her for a moment, catches the coldness in her countenance, and his smile fades. "I see."

"You should go," she tells him, and her heart twists at her words as her mind rejects her heart and the bitterness within her is distant and still.

He doesn't sit, doesn't move beyond resting his hands behind his head. "I won't."

She could order him to leave, could call for Teleus to drag him out and throw him into a cell for disobeying a queen. Could forget about the thief who had never been hers and spend a hundred- a thousand days until she would once more retake what he had stolen from her, if she had ever possessed it to begin with. Instead, she stands, her fingers aching for the touch of his skin again, and says, "Then I will."

* * *

Eugenides is not in her room when she returns there at night, and Relius reports after several days that the Thief of Eddis is back home at last, locked in his library with few visitors admitted. He knows his place well enough to ask no questions, and she says nothing at all.

Attolia visits her own library that day and finds an empty room up a stairway behind the shelves. There is a pile of blankets, sloppily folded, sitting in one corner, and above it is a picture of her, a simple tracing that can be bought in any marketplace. Atop the image is a second golden bracelet, identical to the one encircling her wrist.

She slides it on over the other hand and it catches on her signet ring.

* * *

The young Sounis is rallying forces with his magus, but he is too young and his support is insignificant against the rebels and the Medes. Relius reports that the Mede have approached young Sounis, offering him their aid to quash the rebels, but even Sounis is not so naïve as to accept them. Attolia remembers the magus and Eugenides's faith in him, and she wonders if a king with a trusted advisor would be stable enough to challenge the Mede.

Perhaps. Perhaps there would still be hope, had Sounis had an army.

But the situation is grim and the hope of preserving her kingdom with minimal bloodshed even less, without the three countries of the peninsula united. She finds herself watching Nahuseresh more speculatively than ever before, and though all of who she is rebels at the thought of an alliance with the Mede that would bankrupt her country of even the money Nahuseresh courts her with and turn them over to an empire that cares not, she wonders-

No.

She is no Eddis, connected so intimately with her people that she would save them and lose her country in the process. She is ruthless and powerful and Attolia itself must come first, even if thousands of men will die to preserve it. There must be a country to rebuild if they do go to war with Sounis and the Mede.

Eddis sends messengers and she hears them out and sends them back, tense and proud and unwilling to yield to an alliance with the other country, either. Attolia cannot afford an alliance, not as it is now, and not when trade with Sounis has been nearly impossible since the civil wars there had begun. She will not suffer her country bled dry for Eugenides's-

For Eddis's aid.

Until the day when messengers send forth news and Eddis herself arrives, surrounded by her guard and much pomp and ceremony, Eugenides sitting comfortably beside her in her carriage. He scorches her with his stare and says nothing while Eddis speaks tired words of peace and a unified army to quash the rebellion in Sounis.

"And how would you accomplish this?" she demands scornfully when they're all in her throne room together, the Mede ambassador standing in a corner looking uncharacteristically disgruntled with these developments. "Risk ourselves for Eddis's treaty with Sounis? We have no money to pay tribute, no space for your men in our armies. And we want nothing of Eddis that you can offer as collateral."

Eddis turns, her eyes bright. She glances once at Eugenides, subtly enough that Attolia is certain only she had been meant to see it. "Nothing?" she repeats.

Attolia is stunned immobile in her seat. Across the room, Eugenides is equally taken aback, and she is comforted by that, at least, that single implication that these are far from his machinations. "Please," Eddis says, waving a hand. "Let us speak privately, queen to queen. There are matters that must be decided."

Attolia gives the order and the room empties until only Teleus stands beside her, a wary guard, and Eugenides and Eddis alone remain in their seats. Eugenides has recovered, but he is the first to speak, irreverent as always of the royalty in the room. "What are you proposing, My Queen?"

She remembers once he'd called her his queen, had touched her hands with tenderness and wonder, and old bitterness rises within her. "I will not be sold to Eddis," and she remembers their last night together, scathing and furious. "Nor stolen," she adds, refusing to look to Eugenides.

"No," Eddis agrees, reaching over to wrap her hand around Eugenides's arm. "But until you find a king, you will never hold your barons, and certainly not enough to mobilize them against the Mede on your own." Until now, they had spoken only of Sounis, and Attolia automatically glances to where Nahuseresh had stood moments before. "We must be unified if our countries are to survive."

A shadow crosses her face for a moment, but then she is standing, walking toward the entrance. She pauses for a moment. "We can make this alliance, perhaps equally long-lasting, without a king. But it must be made." Eddis is shorter than Attolia, perhaps less impressive, but in that moment she is equally queen, imperious and commanding and every bit the monarch that would have inspired such love from her people. Attolia hates her and envies her and likes her more than she would have expected, and she can only nod numbly at the other woman's demand.

Teleus glances at her for confirmation before leaving, and then it is only Eugenides with her, sitting across from her, silent again. She rises gracefully, making her way across the room to stand before him. "You would be king?" she asks him, arching an eyebrow. He has been thief and advisor and confidant, but never left the shadows of her palace to the kingdom beyond it.

He shrugs helplessly. "I would be yours," he whispers.

"Oh." Her fingers find their way back to his face, and all the reasons she'd come up with- all the prideful, terrified, vulnerable lies meant to justify sending him away- are suddenly meaningless before his simple words. "Oh," she repeats, leaning in to press her lips against his cheek. "I sent you away." It's an apology in all but word. She must learn to apologize, if this is what comes next.

He meets her gaze, defiant as always in the face of her tentativeness. "I came back."

"Good." They speak around the truth, drawing pictures that have yet to be filled in with color but are clear all the same, and she's overwhelmed at the thought of this, at her Thief and his Queen and Eugenides and Attolia and even Irene, burrowed beneath the surface. And again, she desires nothing more than to run, to hide her heart far from where it remains vulnerable in his grasp.

"I love you," he says, and the picture turns bright with glittering color.

Her Thief awaits His Queen, and she comes to him with a final whisper of words.


End file.
